Final Draft - Great Conversations
Great conversations with authors from Australia and around the world.
Arts
Books
1
Victoria Hannan’s I Love the Whole World
Victoria Hannan is a photographer and writer from Melbourne/Naarm. She is the author of Kokomo and Marshmallow. Victoria joins Andrew today with her new novel I Love the Whole World
35 min
2
Max Easton’s Now, Autonomy
Max Easton’s first novel, The Magpie Wing, was longlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award.  Max joins us today with his third novel is Now, Autonomy
43 min
3
Chris Ames’s I Made This Just For You
Chris Ames is a writer from California, who now lives in Melbourne. He is the 2025 winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. And we now are the beneficiaries as we discover his short story collection I Made This Just For You.
49 min
4
Christy Anne Jones’s Theodora's Tea Shop
Christy Anne Jones is an author, illustrator and content creator. Her debut novel is Theodora’s Tea Shop
29 min
5
Mirandi Riwoe’s A Short History of Longans
Mirandi Riwoe is the author of Sunbirds, The Fish Girl, and Stone Sky Gold Mountain, which won the Queensland Literary Award – Fiction Book Award and the inaugural ARA Historical Novel Prize, and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award.  Mirandi joins us with her new novel A Short History of Longans
45 min
6
Kris Kneen’s Rite of Spring
37 min
7
Allee Richards’s Tight Lines
34 min
8
Y.M. Abdel-Magied’s At Sea
Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese diaspora author, screenwriter and award-winning social advocate. Yassmin has joined us on Final Draft in the past discussing her essays in Talking About a Revolution and her children’s novel Listen Layla. Today she is joining us with her literary fiction debut, At Sea. 
27 min
9
Ilka Tampke’s How to Love the World
Ilka Tampke is an award-winning author, academic and teacher. Her first two novels, Skin and Songwoman explore the druidic culture of Ancient Britain and its disruption by Roman colonisation. Ilka joins us with her latest novel How to Love the World
43 min
10
Book Club - Johanna Bell’s Department of the Va...
3 min
11
Book Club - Antoun Issa’s Rebirth
3 min
12
Katherine Johnson’s Every Wild Soul
Katherine Johnson is the author of five novels including Matryoshka and Paris Savages. Katherine’s latest Every Wild Soul is the inaugural winner of The Australian Fiction Prize and Katherine is joining us to discuss today.
28 min
13
Johanna Bell’s Department of the Vanishing
Johanna is an award winning author of fiction, poetry and children’s books. She’s joining us today with her new novel Department of the Vanishing which won the 2025 Tasmanian Literary Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript.
47 min
14
Book Club - Y.M. Abdel-Magied’s At Sea
Zainab has spent her life on oil rigs living the fly in fly out life. It’s meant missing out on a lot, including a relationship with her sister. Now she’s in Perth on a promise that she will see her sister through the birth of her first child. This could finally be the chance to repair their relationship. When Zainab’s boss Bryce calls her back from leave to investigate strange goings on on the rig Clarissa Clyde, she knows this could be her big break.
4 min
15
Mary Colussi’s Touch Grass
​​Mary Colussi’s debut novel Touch Grass won the 2025 Penguin Literary Prize.
29 min
16
Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore
​Charlotte McConaghy is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of the novels Wild Dark Shore, Once There Were Wolves, and Migrations.
42 min
17
Book Club - Brendan Colley’s The Season for Fly...
When the lights appear on the first night of summer Hobart is abuzz. Locals and paranormal pundits alike agree, it’s shaping up to be a good season.
3 min
18
Antoun Issa’s Rebirth
Antoun Issa is a Lebanese-Australian journalist and co-founder of Deepcut News.
45 min
19
Book Club - Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore
Shearwater Island has a dark history. Pillaged for its natural resources, the island saw the massacre of hundreds of thousands of whales, seals and penguins to prop up the energy needs of industrialising countries. Since those dark days the island has become a miracle of environmental renewal only to see itself threatened again by rising sea levels that could see it vanish forever. 
3 min
20
Melissa Manning’s Frogsong
Melissa Manning’s debut story collection, Smokehouse, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction. Melissa joins us today with her new novel Frogsong.
34 min
21
Sam Elliott’s Haze
Sam Elliott is a writer and podcaster. He’s the host of ‘The Write Way’, and joins us today with his debut novel Haze.
33 min
22
Emily Gale’s The Wild Unknown
Emily has worked in the children’s book industry for over 25 years. Her writing includes I Am Out With Lanterns (2018), Elsewhere Girls (2021) and Outlaw Girls (2024).  Emily is joining us with her new novel The Wild Unknown
33 min
23
Brendan Colley’s The Season for Flying Saucers
Brendan Colley’s first novel The Signal Line won the Unpublished Manuscript Prize in the 2019 Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Awards, and was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and The Age Book of the Year. Today Brendan joins us with his new novel The Season for Flying Saucers.
48 min
24
Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s Bugger
50 min
25
Tim Ayliffe's Dark Desert Road
30 min